According to the reports of New York Times, Google executives are on trail, who have been accused for defamation and violation of the terms and conditions in reference to a video, that has been posted to the Italian Google Video site. It is a cellphone video of a Down Syndrome boy being teased by four boys from Turin.

“Four executives of Google begin trial Tuesday in Milan on criminal charges of defamation and privacy violation in regard to a video posted on Google’s Italian site.”

The Italian officials say that, this video should not have been posted online. And if the prosecutors win the case, the Google executives may end up serving jail time in Italy.
“To our knowledge, this is the first time an individual has been criminally charged for violation of data protection laws that occurred by the company he or she works for,” said Trevor Hughes, the executive director of the International Association of Privacy Professionals “This suggests that privacy is going to be more of a battleground.” he further added.
The main issue in this case is that the video was posted without taking permission from any of the subjects of the video.

According to Google, “As we have repeatedly made clear, our hearts go out to the victim and his family. We are pleased that as a result of our cooperation the bullies in the video have been identified and punished. We feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong. It’s akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post. What’s more, seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet. We will continue to vigorously defend our employees in this prosecution.”

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